


Of Lightsabers and Love Affairs

by tantive404



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, HanLeia Challenge, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jedi Leia Organa, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:47:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25007188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tantive404/pseuds/tantive404
Summary: The war is over, and there is much to be done.Leia makes the decision to begin her Jedi training, and as always, Han remains there, by her side.For the June 2020 HanLeia Challenge prompt "Jedi"
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31
Collections: HanLeia Challenge





	Of Lightsabers and Love Affairs

Han Solo wasn’t the kind of guy who believed in miracles. Sure, he’d run into some things that were pretty unexpected over the years, but that was no reason to start believing in the extraordinary. 

One of those unexpected things, though, beat out all the rest— stuck out like a sore thumb, actually. 

The day he’d been roped into a job on Tatooine— the cesspit of the galaxy— by an old man and some farmboy kid, and somehow, everything had turned into an undercover mission to rescue a princess from under the Empire’s nose. 

Han had heard a lot about the Core World royalty, and this princess was nothing like the stories said. She was brash and bossy— pretty annoying if he said so himself— but maybe kinda cute. 

(Not that he’d ever have admitted that out loud, of course.) 

Chewie was the reason he began to realize he was falling in love with her— sometime between Yavin and Hoth, after a mission, when he’d patted Han on the head and referred to them both as “mates”. 

“ _ What  _ did he call us?” Leia asked, indignant and blushing. Her Shyriiwook was still a little rough, but Han happened to know that it was at around this time that, out of sheer desperation to understand their companion, she’d started to take lessons. From Threepio, of all people. (Well, he was the one who claimed to be familiar with however many forms of communication.)

Now, Han never intended to stay with the Rebellion. He had his debt to Jabba to pay off, and he didn’t intend to die a martyr for some impossible cause. But  _ something  _ was making him stay. 

(He knew it was her— the look in her eyes when she pleaded “We  _ need _ you, Han!” and he shot back “We?” hoping that someday, she would confess to him that all along, it was her and her alone who needed him. 

He’d never in a million years have expected that her rebellion was going to  _ win _ , nor that, when Vader had him frozen in carbonite and shipped him off to Jabba, she would come back for him. 

Possibly most unexpected was that, once it had all ended, he would find his Princess away from the party, tears stained on her face. 

She wiped them away as he approached, not wanting him to see her pain. He was so used to the facade that she put on for the other rebels— that of the cold, strong leader, who didn’t have time for sorrows.

But slowly, he had come to see her barriers break down, revealing the woman beneath and all her struggles, all the feeling she’d so wanted to hide. 

Gently, he placed a hand on her shoulder, and she turned to face him.

“Hey, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

_ (They each thought back to a time not so long before, sitting there, beneath the leaves of Endor, when she’d broken the news to him: “He’s my brother.”  _

_ Luke— her brother. What a weird coincidence, if that was in fact, what it was. Just how long had she been keeping this information?  _

_ Stunned into silence, he leaned in and kissed her. She was a remarkable woman— and a mysterious one, too.  _

_ “I’ll bet Luke made it off that thing before it blew,” he’d said, looking up at the explosion in the sky where the Empire’s Death Star contraption (the second of those blasted things) had been, and she responded, so naturally, that he had.  _

_ “I can feel it,” she explained, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. She sounded like Luke, when his Jedi nonsense was getting to him, and he’d had to wonder.)  _

“I didn’t know about Luke until a couple days ago,” she explained. “He told me we were brother and sister. That was when you found me on the bridge crying.”   
She smiled sadly up at him— a smile that seemed to have some fear behind it, too.

“You wouldn’t believe it. He told me who the father was too.” 

Han pulled her closer into his arms, realized that she was trembling. 

“Do you want to know who it was?”  
She looked at him grimly. 

“It’s Darth Vader.” 

Then she crumbled— broke down. It was as if she expected him to push her away instantly in disgust. 

He was, in all honesty, baffled by this revelation. Vader— a father? And the father of Luke and Leia, nonetheless. Two of the most wonderful people he’d met. 

He didn’t even think Vader would’ve been able to reproduce. 

But that was a mystery for another time. He pulled Leia closer, let her bury herself in his chest. 

“It doesn’t matter, Leia. You’re safe here with me.” 

__________________________________

As it turned out, the Alliance High Command wanted Leia back on Coruscant, to sort matters out with the new governing system. 

So Han followed her. 

There was already gossip with regards to their relationship— talk of scandals, talk of a wedding. A wedding that might soon come to fruition. 

But Leia had enough troubles to deal with as it was. She was grateful for Han’s presence, keeping her steady throughout it all. 

She recalled how one day, after office hours, Luke burst in through the door, startling her. 

It was then that he made a proposal she couldn’t easily shake off. 

“Yes, what is it, Luke?” 

It was becoming easier and easier to think of him like a brother, although the notion was still strange. 

“Leia, I’ve been thinking. I know this may seem difficult to accept, but… I would like to train you in the ways of the Force… for you to become a Jedi.” 

Become a Jedi. 

It sounded so simple. Really, however, it was anything but.

She fled to the Falcon that evening to process her thoughts— and vent to Han. 

“You’ve got a lot on your plate already, Princess,” he said. “There’s no need to add to it. Listen— the galaxy owes this to you. Take a break while you can.” 

She smiled at him. 

“Thanks, Han,” she said. “But it feels like this is something I must do. I’m almost afraid to reject Luke’s offer. But I’m afraid to accept it too.” 

“Leia, you know I don’t believe in that ‘Force’ stuff Luke talks about. But hey, if you’re really a part of some cosmic power that binds the galaxy together, I mean, why be afraid? What is there to lose?” 

She sank back, ever-so-slightly, in her chair. 

“What if I become like  _ him _ ?” she murmured. 

Han raised a brow. 

“Vader?” he asked. 

“Han, he tortured you. He put you in carbonite. Are you really able to let that go and love  _ me _ ? His daughter?” 

Han swallowed. 

“Of course I am,” he said. “You’re no Vader, Princess. He’s done much worse to you, after all.”  
He’d seen the scars on her arms, on her back, from the torture she’d endured on the Death Star. He’d seen the wreckage of Alderaan— her home— as the Falcon had made its way to their fateful meeting. And he’d helped her through countless nightmares that those memories had left behind. 

“Besides,” he said. “Just because some bloodline says that you're Vader’s daughter, it doesn’t change who you are. You dedicated your life to fighting him. You’re still Leia Organa. You’re still a rebel, and a princess, and a survivor, and everything you’ve always been.” 

  
She thought of these words as she sat there with Luke, clutching a crystal in her hand as it pulsated with energy— a blank white slate. 

In spite of herself, Leia had taken a day off, for Luke’s sake, to begin her training. 

Han was away, tying up some loose ends with his old smuggling business, and Chewie was with him, so they were alone. The twins. 

Harvesting a crystal to build a lightsaber was a process more complicated than she’d thought. Coruscant was not native to the caves where the crystals grew, so they’d gone offworld. By the time this was done, they’d all be able to rendezvous once again in the galactic capital, and she'd be back in Han’s arms. That was the plan, at least. 

As she carried the crystal back to the shuttle, Luke walked beside her— quiet, pensive. 

They returned, the scrap metal they’d harvested to build the saber’s hilt lying in a heap on the ship’s floor. She set to work, carefully crafting a design, and finally Luke spoke. 

“I’ve been trying to find as many of the old Jedi texts as I can,” he said. “The ones that the Empire forgot to wipe out. It’s strange. There’s some of their philosophy that I just can’t understand.”   
“Like what?” Leia asked, fashioning the metal and wire together to create the inner workings of the saber. 

“They seem to discourage emotional attachments,” he said. “Which doesn’t make sense to me. Compassion for others is a core tenant of the Jedi way. Attachment to those you care for seems to be a natural consequence of such compassion.” 

“That’s only logical,” Leia agreed, and she began to wonder…

Would her love for Han have been forbidden in the age of the Republic’s Jedi, had she chosen that path? 

“Vader was a Jedi, once,” she remarked. “And yet it’s because of him that our mother gave birth to us. You’d think such a process would involve attachment, in whatever twisted way he might have experienced it.” 

What kind of woman had their mother been, to love Darth Vader? She’d wondered endlessly as a child the kind of people her birth parents might be. She’d dreamed of a mother with kind, sad eyes… but how could she look at those memories the same way, now knowing that this was the very same woman who could have—  _ must  _ have— looked at the Dark Lord of the Sith, the bane of her existence, with loving eyes.

“Our father was a Jedi,” Luke said. “And I know nothing of our mother. But perhaps this was when he began to go astray. When he started to disregard the Jedi code. I don’t know…” 

He saw that Leia’s saber was nearly finished. 

“That’s very good,” he said. He moved down toward her, guided her hands to the right 

place. “Next, you take the crystal…” 

She held it in her hand, focused her energy toward it. 

A feeling of passion, of justice, of peace, and a sometimes-righteous anger. 

Something in the crystal changed. 

Its color shifted, from a blinding white…

...to a brilliant violet. 

She inserted it into the shaft of the hilt, then pressed the switch that activated the beam. 

It was beautiful, yet dangerous. 

Luke looked on, impressed. 

“Now, let’s get started with our training,” he said. 

She followed him. 

__________________________________

_ Block. Attack. Defend. Swing.  _

Her arms ached from the way she’d wielded the saber, sparring with Luke all day, and she longed to see Han’s face again, to let him hold her in his arms and to feel his tender kisses pressed against her lips. As the shuttle made its way back to Coruscant, she lay there, sprawled upon the backseat of the vehicle. She took out her commlink, and, without thinking, dialed his code. 

She just wanted to see him again. 

After a few moments, he picked up. 

“I’m tired, Han,” she complained, and he looked back at her from the tiny blue hologram,

sympathy clearly written in his eyes. 

“I know, Princess,” he said. “Luke hasn’t been pushing you too hard, has he?”    
She laughed. 

“No, it’s not Luke’s fault,” she said. “I guess…  _ I’ve _ been pushing myself fairly hard. 

There’s so much to be done, and... I miss you.”   
“Hey, I miss you too,” he said. “We’ll see each other soon.” 

She knew he was right. This Jedi path was difficult, but she had him by her side. 

Soon, she would be home. 


End file.
